II-V-I explain to a newbie

[big_z_in_miami]

First....I searched and couldn't find anything directly on this chord progression so I apologize if this has been hacked to death before (just direct me to the threads, please).

I understand the concept of progressions and practice the I-IV-V and its variants. Right now I basically lock into a 4 or 8 beat pattern and progress through the chords.

Can someone give me some ideas of how to substitute the II-V-I in the "standard" progressions and ideas on how to build up the two measures (9th and 10th usually) to use this progression so I can build up my options and reducing manotony?

Any theory on why it works is welcome too, but some practical gig usable stuff is what I am after.

Thanks.

[MalcolmAmos]

Originally Posted by big_z_in_miami

Can someone give me some ideas of how to substitute the II-V-I in the "standard" progressions

Well jazz will use the ii V I instead of the IV V I. Both ii and IV are sub-dominant chords - meaning they perform the same function within the progression, i.e. thus they can sub for each other. Jazz seems to have locked on to the ii V I and rock, country, etc. locked on to the I IV V progression. Both ii V I and I IV V are interchangeable. True each brings something a little different to the stage.

Any theory on why it works is welcome too, but some practical gig usable stuff is what I am after.

As we normally play notes not chords, if you had a song in the key of C the I IV V progression would be using C, F and G chords and you would base your bass riffs on those chords. If it was a ii V I progression the chords would be Dm, G and C. Base your riffs on Dm G and C instead of C F and G. I normally ignore the Dm and just base my riffs on D (major) notes, R-3-5-3, however, R-b3-5-b3 would/could be done to help with the minor sound.

..... and ideas on how to build up the two measures (9th and 10th usually) to use this progression so I can build up my options and reducing monotony?

Not following you on the 9th and 10th measure -- I'd point you to the key pentatonic scale or the chord's pentatonic scale to eliminate boredom. Or move into whatever riff you think will work. Don't limit yourself on your "patterns" (riffs). One of my "how to books" offers over 50 generic riffs. Throw a couple more into you bag of tricks.

[odin70]

Try tritonus substitution.

e.g

Dm7 G7 Cmaj7

Dm7 Db7 Cmaj7

Dm7 Abm7 Db7 Cmaj7

[derekd]

The V to I cadence is the strongest in western music, because the V is the furthest from the I, thereby creating the most tension. Most western music is about creating and resolving tension.

If we look at a ii V I in C, Dmin7 is the ii, G7 is V, Cmaj7 is I. But D is also the V of G. So in effect, you are playing V I with Dmin7 to G7, and of course V I with G7 to Cmaj7. This just prolongs the tension resolution of V to I. Hope this helps.

[Rockman]

Originally Posted by derekd

The V to I cadence is the strongest in western music, because the V is the furthest from the I, thereby creating the most tension. Most western music is about creating and resolving tension.

If we look at a ii V I in C, Dmin7 is the ii, G7 is V, Cmaj7 is I. But D is also the V of G. So in effect, you are playing V I with Dmin7 to G7, and of course V I with G7 to Cmaj7. This just prolongs the tension resolution of V to I. Hope this helps.

Its more so V to I cadence is the strongest not because its the farthest, because by the logic than the tritone would be the strongest. Its because of the overtone series and how the perfect fifth is the first note that is not the root, and therefore the ear hears it very readily. V to one is common because the V defines the key your playing in and really is the strongest chord in a key, not the tonic. If you wrote out different voicings for the various progressions you will realize that a ii V I is common because of how there is a easily heard progression from the chord tones which ends up as a step wise motion from the sixth scale degree to the tonic.
And we can't discuss ii Vs without talking about iii vi ii V I which again is a very common progression, in fact maybe the most common.

[Richard Lindsey]

Originally Posted by derekd

If we look at a ii V I in C, Dmin7 is the ii, G7 is V, Cmaj7 is I. But D is also the V of G. So in effect, you are playing V I with Dmin7 to G7, and of course V I with G7 to Cmaj7.

I think this is a bit off. Dm7-G7 isn't really a V-I, because for the dominant function as commonly understood to work, the V has to be a major chord, which Dm7 isn't. (Though the argument could be made that either a V or a v could be the dominant chord if built off the 5th scale degree, in practice we usually want to hear a leading tone, as in the V.)

I think it would be better to say that the Dm7 is carrying out the subdominant function (which it can do as a substitute for the actual subdominant, F), the G7 is of course carrying out the dominant function, and voila, you have the classic subdominant-dominant-tonic movement. This is a simpler explanation than positing a secondary dominant, and it makes use of a standard harmonic function (subdominant).

If you were dealing with D7-G7, that would be a bit different, because it would be a case of a secondary dominant. But that's not what Dm7 is really acting like here.

[Richard Lindsey]

Originally Posted by Rockman

V to one is common because the V defines the key your playing in and really is the strongest chord in a key, not the tonic.

I would say the dominant doesn't really define what key you're playing in. You can only define a chord as having a dominant function if you already have some idea what key you're in. Otherwise it's just a 7th chord (or a dominant 7th chord type, as opposed to having a true dominant function).

Say you play a G7 chord, just by itself. What key are you in? It could be C, or it could be C minor, or it could be Am. You could be in D dorian. You could be playing a blues in G, with G as the tonic. You need a tonic to establish what that G7 is the dominant of, if it's even functioning as a dominant.

Without a tonic, you don't have a key. The same can't be said of the dominant. You can have a key without a dominant. (See subdominant function, for example.)

[MalcolmAmos]

Originally Posted by Rockman

.....And we can't discuss ii Vs without talking about iii vi ii V I which again is a very common progression, in fact maybe the most common.

Yes --- If you want to resolve quickly then use the V or V7 -I, however if you want to lead somewhere else or take a leisurely route to resolution use the viidim instead of the V7 for a leisurely ride to resolution with the viidim-iii-vi-ii-V-I. The viidim and V chords are both dominant chords, thus can sub for each other. The viidim in addition to being a dominant chord it is also a leading tone chord so is the logical choice to lead to the iii.

[big_z_in_miami]

Originally Posted by MalcolmAmos

Not following you on the 9th and 10th measure --

My understanding is that folks will substitute a 2-5-1 into the standard 12 bar 1-4-5 progression, i.e. they substitute the 5-4 in measures 9 and 10 with a 2-5-1 eight beat riff. Gives a different lead into the last two bars of the 12 bar blues (which is usually a turn around or an ending riff).

I actually never thought of doing the whole song in 2-5-1, but I will check that out, as well as the 3-6-2-5-1 somebody else noted.

Mostly looking for some generic progressions to use to lay down a bass line for a friend to jam blues guitar on top of.

[MalcolmAmos]

Originally Posted by big_z_in_miami

......Mostly looking for some generic progressions to use to lay down a bass line for a friend to jam blues guitar on top of.

http://www.bobbrozman.com/tip_evol12bar.html

[Richard Lindsey]

Apologies for the theory overkill above. That was probably more info than was really helpful here in this particular setting.

[big_z_in_miami]

Originally Posted by MalcolmAmos

http://www.bobbrozman.com/tip_evol12bar.html

Damn, that was really interesting reading on the history of the 12 bar progression. Very cool! I can see alot of options openly up from that.

[nothumb]

ii V I ?

[MarkTAW]

Originally Posted by Rockman

Its more so V to I cadence is the strongest not because its the farthest, because by the logic than the tritone would be the strongest. Its because of the overtone series and how the perfect fifth is the first note that is not the root, and therefore the ear hears it very readily.

Just want to clarify some points here (even if it's not exactly "practical gig" stuff, but a read through this may explain WHY ii-V-I in more terms than just "think of it as a modified 12 bar blues - which in itself isn't an explanation since 12 bar blues hasn't been explained).

The fifth is the first note in the overtone series (other than the root/octave) but that's not what makes the V-I satisfying.

For reasons I won't go into here, there's a school of thought that says all chord progressions are based on I, IV, V, and any other chords are just substitutes for one of those chords. This is simplifying things a bit, but this concept often works well in practice.

Out of I, IV, and V, the V is the one that contains the most dissonant notes.

I - root, third, fifth - all sound very good together, very closely related to the root, heck these note are all derived from the overtone series of the root and the chord itself IS the root - not very adventurous.

IV - fourth, sixth, root - this is practically an inverted I chord. Start at I, and go a (minor) third down, and a perfect fifth down and you get an IV chord. So nothing too adventurous going on here, all the notes here still work well with the root.

V - fifth, seventh, second - well the fifth comes out of the root, so by itself it isn't so exciting*, but the seventh & second are dissonant to the root and strongly want to resolve to it. Out of I, IV, V, this is the chord that has the most interesting stuff going on.

* Though technically all the notes in a V major chord are derived from the overtones of the note itself.

A ii can be thought of as a chord substitution for IV. It contains to notes in common with IV, which makes it a good chord substitution. It has the added benefit of being "the V of the V" (it's a fifth higher than V, so all the things we said about the V chord - well the ii chord does that to the V chord) so it leads nicely to the V, which leads nicely to the I.

Et voila - ii, V, I.

You can extend this out further - vi is the fifth of the ii, and iv is the fifth of vi, and we get to a chord progression I think a couple of people mentioned above:

iv, vi, ii, V, I.

* (or technically "the v of the V")

BTW - lowercase letters mean minor chords, CAPITAL letters mean major chords. We use roman numerals when referring to chords and numbers when referring to notes. (E.g. a V chord is made up of 5, 7, 9.) It's a habit you should get used to, you'll see it a lot, especially when reading a forum like this.